Sexuality in the Babylonian Talmud: Christian and Sasanian Contexts in Late Antiquity

Within this close textual analysis of the Babylonian Talmud, Yishai Kiel explores rabbinic discussions of sex in light of cultural assumptions and dispositions that pervaded the cultures of late antiquity and particularly the Iranian world. By negotiating the Iranian context of the rabbinic discussion alongside the Christian backdrop, this groundbreaking volume presents a balanced and nuanced portrayal of the rabbinic discourse on sexuality and situates rabbinic discussions of sex more broadly at the crossroads of late antique cultures. The study is divided into two thematic sections: the first centers on the broader aspects of rabbinic discourse on sexuality while the second hones in on rabbinic discussions of sexual prohibitions and the classification of permissible and prohibited partnerships, with particular attention to rabbinic discussions of incest. Essential reading for scholars and graduate students of Judaic studies, early Christianity, and Iranian studies, as well as those interested in religious studies and comparative religion.

Yishai Kiel is a lecturer in the Religious Studies Department and Directed Studies Program at Yale University, Connecticut. Kiel has published in numerous peer-reviewed platforms, including The Journal of Religion, Harvard Theological Review, Vetus Testamentum, the Journal of the American Oriental Society, the Journal of Jewish Studies, the Journal of Biblical Literature, Bulletin of the Asia Institute, AJS Review, Jewish Studies Quarterly, the Journal for the Study of Judaism, and The Jewish Law Annual.

Thursday, 27 October 2016

A mural discovered in an ancient tomb in Haojiagou of Fenxi county in Shanxi province. [Photo/Shanxi Daily]

China Daily Europe 24 October 2016The one year archeological excavation of Jin (960-1276), Yuan (1271-1368), Ming (1368-1644) and Qing (1644-1911) dynasties' tombs in Haojiagou of Fenxi County in Shanxi province has achieved major results. 172 tombs were discovered and 200 pieces or sets of cultural relic items were unearthed, with three bricked mural tombs as highlights.

This excavation area covers more than 4,000 square meters and various relics, including pottery, ceramics, iron wares, stone items, copper wares, bricks and tiles, were found at the site.

The three bricked mural tombs discovered by archeologists from Jin and Yuan dynasties were found in their entirety. Two of them are wooden-like octagon single room brick tombs, and the other round brick tomb.

A land-purchasing voucher from 1182 was found in one of the octagon tombs, which was helpful in confirming the age of the tomb.

Wu Junhua, a local archeologist, said that the tomb murals in Jin and Yuan dynasties are very rare and have a high-level of artistry. The discovery of the tombs, along with the murals and carvings inside, provide new clues for the research of ancient tombs.

The structure of tomb chamber discovered in Haojiagou of Fenxi county in Shanxi province. [Photo/Shanxi Daily]

In 1900, a Taoist priest named Wang Yuanlu discovered a cave in Dunhuang, Gansu province, packed with tens of thousands of volumes of Buddhist sutra.

Six years later the Hungarian-British archaeologist Marc Aurel Stein arrived in Dunhuang, followed soon after by the French archaeologist Paul Pelliot. Both paid a pittance for priceless treasures from the cave, and both took photos of it and its surroundings.

When you compare those photos with ones taken recently, the extent of the irretrievable loss that Dunhuang and the world have suffered over the past century or so becomes clear. Colors on many of the murals and statues have faded, and blurry areas have become more expansive as a result of oxidation and damage inflicted by people.

A lot of the damage happened in the 1950s and 1960s when artists tried to make facsimiles of murals and when archaeologists tried to survey and map the caves.

Clockwise from left: 3-D printed Buddhist sculptures; Cameramen use scaffolding to capture the images on a smoked roof; A digital and immersive experience of the cave. Photos Provided to China Daily

From top: 3-D point cloud technology helps photographers to have a better rendering of the murals; Dunhuang Academy now uses high-resolution cameras to capture the images of the murals.

In recent years, the growing number of tourists has increased the amount of carbon dioxide and humidity in the atmosphere and the exposure of relics to light and other elements has sped up their deterioration.

In an effort to minimize the the damage, since July visitors have had to apply online to visit the caves. The number is limited to 6,000 a day.

Before beginning their tour proper, visitors go to the Mogao Grottoes Visitor Center to watch two 20-minute films, including one about the seven most valuable caves in terms of artistic achievement.

Since the end of last month it has been possible for people around the world to see online 3-D views of the caves, and virtual reality devices can be used to view the images.

"Over the past three decades, especially in recent years, we have been developing digital technology that can be used not only to preserve images of the relics, but also to help archaeologists record detailed information about the caves and help artists make facsimiles of the murals," says Wu Jian, director of the digital center of Dunhuang Academy, a research institute devoted to studying and preserving the Mogao Grottoes.

Cai Weitang, 59, an archaeologist, joined the academy in 1978. He is among the first to have applied digital technology in his work.

Earlier, all field surveys and mapping were done by hand, Cai says.

"We had to erect scaffolding so we could measure the higher parts of the caves."

A typical old-fashioned tool kit for an archaeologist in Dunhuang included a compass, a tape, a set square, a steel tape, a plummet and a home-made square grid.

The grid, usually one or two meters long, consisted of a handful of lines, fixed horizontally and vertically to form squares of about 1 square centimeter.

When surveying and mapping a mural, Cai put the grid in front of it without touching it. For example, if he planned to copy the lines of an eye on the picture, he would find three points on the grid, jot them down and connect them with lines. In this way, he could slowly build a collection of the outlines of the murals and colored statues.

As well as keeping accurate records of the murals and statues, archaeologists need to do the same for the caves, including taking high-definition photos, so that if one day they are destroyed for any reason, records will yield enough information to allow the grottoes to be fully and accurately replicated.

In the past, after the lines were drawn on gridded paper, they needed to be copied onto imitation parchment.

"It's an extremely complex job, and very time-consuming," Cai says, adding that there were too many inaccuracies through measuring with rudimentary tools.

"People draw differently. Some are good, some bad. They have very different styles."

Dunhuang Academy was founded in 1944 by Chang Shuhong. At the very beginning, the intention was to keep comprehensive archaeological records, but until the 1990s the project was behind schedule.

It planned to publish 100 volumes of records for the UNESCO World Heritage site, covering everything in the Mogao Grottoes, the nearby Yulin Grottoes and Western Thousand-Buddha Cave.

The first of the 100 volumes, published in 2011, included caves numbered from 266 to 275.

Generally, using the old method, it would take two to three people five to six years to survey a cave.

"We will now be able to finish all the surveying and mapping in four years thanks to 3-D point-cloud scanning technology," Cai says.

This technology enables users to collect detailed information about the subject based on points chosen during scanning, so that the detail of a curved surface or complicated structure and lines can be accurately captured.

It takes the scanner one to two hours to finish scanning a whole cave.

After scanning, the processed digital information generates a drawing of the cave's structure and the outline of the statues. But the shapes of eyes and noses on murals do not reproduce clearly, so archaeologists need to make revisions using high-definition photos.

"It's our first try," Cai says. "The new method cuts the work time by one third, and it's much more accurate."

Recently a reproduction of Cave 320 of the Mogao Grottoes was on display at the Getty Center in Los Angeles. The exhibition, opened in May and ran until September.

Ma Qiang, 53, director of the academy's fine art institute, is one of the artists who took part in the project. He spent four years creating facsimiles of the 6-sq m mural on the eastern wall of Cave 320.

Since 1981 when the 17-year-old Ma first arrived at Dunhuang Academy after failing the national college entrance examination, he has finished facsimiles of more than 30 murals in the Mogao Grottoes.

In the 1950s, the State Bureau of Cultural Relics received an old-fashioned slide projector from Poland as a gift, Ma says. Zheng Zhenduo, then head of the bureau, gave the projector to the Dunhuang Academy.

Ma recalls that the projector was still being used in the 1980s. If artists at that time wanted to create a facsimile of a mural they would first go to the cave to use rulers to measure its dimensions and record the information in notebooks.

Photographers, from the photographic section, that later became the digital center, would then take 10 black-and-white pictures of the whole mural.

"I would get the slides of 10 photos and then I took the projector and the slides to bigger caves, like No 61 or 98," Ma says.

After setting up a board and spreading two layers of Chinese art paper on it, Ma turned on the projector and put the images in. These were then projected onto paper. The size of the image could be adjusted according to the size appropriate for the cave.

With the mural's image projected on paper, Ma was able to trace the lines - even broken or unclear ones - and draw them.

However, after the projector had been on for 30 to 40 minutes the slides would get too hot and start to distort. So he then had to take a break to wait for the machine to cool down and for the slides return to their original state.

Ma would later go back and see what lines had been completely missed or incorrectly shown.

Usually, it would take an artist a year to do the first draft and revise it, and another year to color it.

"The most important thing is to understand the spirit of those murals and how their unique style developed in different historical periods," Ma says.

Sometimes the same Buddhist stories are presented in different styles.

Ma cites as an example the classic story about a prince who sacrifices himself to feed tigers.

Cave 428 and Cave 254 have murals that present the story, but the one in Cave 254, completed during the Northern Wei Dynasty (AD 386-557), is in the Han ethnic style, looking more unrestrained and free, compared with that in 428, drawn during the Tang Dynasty (AD 618-907), which is more ornamental.

Because of the complicated procedure, copying a 6-sq m mural would take two or three people two years to complete.

"Now it's easier for me to do a copy," Ma says. "But I have a lot of other work to do and it took me four years, from early 2012, to finish the facsimile of the mural on the east wall of Cave 320. I had to do the management work, write papers and do my own artistic work - last year he completed 500 ink and wash paintings.

"This time we used 3-D point-cloud technology to collect digital information for the whole cave. Based on that, we can build a wooden model of it and draw the outline of the murals."

Based on the outlines produced by the technology and the high-definition photos provided by the digital center, artists fill in colors made from stones such as turquoise, malachite and cinnabarit, and add finer lines that have been missed by the scanner.

"We still need to go to the caves to see the original murals and study their history and artistic styles so we can understand the spirit of the works in those years," Ma says.

The high-definition photos sometimes can be misleading to inexperienced artists.

"They focus too much on the broken or missing parts, and overlook the whole," Ma says.

Wu says the focus of future work at the digital center will be on studying how to present the digital information to audiences.

Ma believes artists' work based on 3-D printed copies of the murals will become the norm.

In June, the Dunhuang Academy presented 3-D printed Buddhist sculptures and their holographic images at the 12th Five-Year Plan (2011-2015) Scientific Innovation Exhibition in Beijing, attracting a great deal of attention.

"If the new technology can do the job, we will let it. We artists do what it cannot, such as adding to the thickness and granular sensation of the copies."

Conservation in Action: Preserving Nirvana

For the next six months, MFA visitors can watch and interact with conservators as the Museum’s Asian Conservation Studio in partnership with colleagues from the Smithsonian’s Freer Gallery of Art publicly restores Hanabusa Itchō’s rare masterpiece, Death of Buddha (1713)—one of the most important Buddhist paintings of its time.

Hanabusa Itchō (1652–1724), best known for his satiric scenes of everyday life, enlivened the traditional scene depicting Buddha’s death through his masterful handling of the individual figures and grieving members of the animal kingdom. The painting was famous in its own time, attracting travelers to the Zen temple where it was displayed annually for more than 150 years.

The conservation treatment is an elaborate process that involves completely dismantling and reassembling the scroll. The new mounting uses a custom woven reproduction of the original mounting silk made for the MFA by traditional weavers in Kyoto. The scroll painting also has elaborate gilt metal fittings carved with mythical lions, created and signed in the 18th century by the famed metalworker and close friend of the artist, Yokoya Sōmin. Follow the progress at #mfaConservation or for an in-depth look at this conservation project, see Conservation in Action.

On October 19, MFA conservators and their Freer/Sackler colleagues rejoin Hanabusa Itcho’s oversized painting back into its hanging scroll form. When finished the scroll will be 16 feet tall!

Celestial Women: Imperial Wives and Concubines in China from Song to QingHardcover– 1 Jul 2016

This volume completes Keith McMahon’s acclaimed history of imperial wives and royal polygamy in China. Avoiding the stereotype of the emperor’s plural wives as mere victims or playthings, the book considers empresses and concubines as full-fledged participants in palace life, whether as mothers, wives, or go-betweens in the emperor’s relations with others in the palace. Although restrictions on women’s participation in politics increased dramatically after Empress Wu in the Tang, the author follows the strong and active women, of both high and low rank, who continued to appear. They counseled emperors, ghostwrote for them, oversaw succession when they died, and dominated them when they were weak. They influenced the emperor’s relationships with other women and enhanced their aura and that of the royal house with their acts of artistic and religious patronage. Dynastic history ended in China when the prohibition that women should not rule was defied for the final time by Dowager Cixi, the last great monarch before China’s transformation into a republic.

Keith McMahon is professor of East Asian languages and cultures at the University of Kansas. His books include Women Shall Not Rule: Imperial Wives and Concubines in China from Han to Liaoand The Fall of the God of Money: Opium Smoking in Nineteenth-Century China.

Monday, 24 October 2016

Filmed at the Royal Institution of Great Britain on 7th September 2016.

25 years ago, with the fall of the Berlin Wall, the future looked rosy. Liberal democracy, freedom and individual rights were on the march, triumphing over tyranny and repression. The end of the Cold War had brought an end to history, declared Francis Fukuyama. A quarter of a century on, that sunny picture has clouded over. History has come bouncing back, says Peter Frankopan, the Oxford historian and author of the bestseller, 'The Silk Roads', a major reassessment of world history which has won ecstatic reviews across the globe.

We are living in a time of transition. Migration, religious fundamentalism and climate change leave many of us anxious about the future. So too does the rise of China, the re-emergence of Iran, the actions and posturing of Russia and a Middle East that seems fragile and volatile, where the dreams of the Arab Spring have turned to despair, as conflict rages across north Africa and the Middle East.

How should we best understand what is going on – and how do we prepare for the new world that is emerging? In June 2016 Frankopan came to the Intelligence Squared stage to put these questions into an historical perspective. He was joined by politician Kwasi Kwarteng, a rising star in Westminster, whose books on the history of empire and on finance have given him a rare perspective on global change and on the ways the West has engaged with other parts of the world, sometimes as he sees it with disastrous effect.

Frankopan and Kwarteng examined the rise of Asia and asked whether we are entering a new era where Europe is becoming not just less important, but potentially irrelevant. They also looked at the lessons that can be learned from the recent and not so recent past. As Frankopan argues so powerfully in 'The Silk Roads', history looks very different when viewed from different perspectives. The rhythm of change that we find so unsettling today has characterised previous centuries and is not only unsurprising, he claims, but actually predictable.

The globe has rotated towards the West for the last five hundred years. Now, as Frankopan explained, it is turning east, towards the new Silk Roads, largely funded by China, that fan out in all directions across Asia. Is it closing time in the gardens of the west, as our old comfortable democratic assumptions – and our comfort – fall prey to a world order that is changing at terrifyingly quick pace?

The Maritime Silk Road was a major conduit for foreign trade in ancient China. Maritime trade began as early as the Qin and Han dynasties, and reached its peak during the Song and Yuan period. The Maritime Silk Road comprised of two major shipping routes: the East China Sea route linking China with the Korean Peninsula and Japanese archipelago; and the South China Sea route reaching from China westwards to Southeast Asia and the Indian Ocean region. Major Maritime Silk Road cities in China such as Penglai, Yangzhou, Ningbo, Fuzhou, Quanzhou, Zhangzhou, Guangzhou, and Beihai played important roles in the development of maritime transport and trade. From the south-eastern ports and through the South China Sea to the Persian Gulf and Red Sea, Chinese silk, pottery, tea, and other goods were sent to the Arabian world and other locations in Asia and Africa. Spices, woollen textiles, ivory, and other commodities flowed into China from overseas. Although the Maritime Silk Road suffered the restrictions of a maritime trade ban during the Ming and Qing period, exchanges between China and foreign countries never stopped. In addition to facilitating the exchange of goods, the Maritime Silk Road also promoted the interaction and integration of different ethnicities, religions, and cultures. This exhibition is a cultural exchange programme of Mainland China-Hong Kong-Macao in 2016, supported by the Chinese Culture Friendship Association. By using the cultural relics from eight Maritime Silk Road cities, as well as artefacts from Hong Kong, the exhibition elaborates upon the roles and functions each had as they grew and prospered on the Maritime Silk Road. The exhibition also reflects upon the impact and contribution of the Maritime Silk Road on the development of the world's civilisations.

Besides the precious artefacts about the Maritime Silk Road, the exhibition features a number of interactive programmes, such as the interactive map of Maritime Silk Road, "My merchant ship" and "Guess the ancient places" etc. which aim to provide the audience with different museum experiences and deeper understanding of the exhibition subject.

The base with brown patterns on white glazed coloured vessel from the Cizhou KilnCollection of Penglai Ancient Ships Museum

Amethyst beadsCollection of Hepu Han Dynasty Cultural Museum

Bronze mirror with seahorse and grape patternsCollection of Yangzhou Museum

‘A heart without love is a body without a soul. A soul lives forever because of love.’ So wrote the Persian poet, scholar and mystic, Jami (1414–1492), on love – of all subjects, perhaps the most universal to humankind. In Persianate culture, the theme of love has permeated literature, art and music for thousands of years.

In the display, love and courtship are explored through drawings, illustrated manuscript pages and objects, depicting intimate scenes and classical Persian accounts of celebrated romances. Illuminated Persian marriage contracts (ghabaleh), along with a Judaeo-Persian example (ketubbah) and an Old Babylonian contract carved onto a clay tablet, reflect the legal and social aspects of marriage and its roots in ancient tradition. The works are complemented by a number of richly embroidered textiles, including wedding garments and accessories.

Dating mainly between the 1500s and the 20th century, these objects situate love and marriage within the histories, narratives and contexts of people from the Middle East and Central Asia.

Saturday, 22 October 2016

A Chinese archaeologist recently refuted a BBC report about northwest China's Terracotta Warriors, saying that the article has quoted her out of context and overstated her remarks about Western influence on the 8,000 life-sized figures.

The BBC report, released October 12, said archaeologists have found that inspiration for the Terracotta Warriors, found at the Tomb of the First Emperor near today's Xi'an, Shaanxi Province, may have come from Ancient Greece.

The article quoted Li Xiuzhen, senior archaeologist from the Emperor Qin Shi Huang's Mausoleum Site Museum, as saying, "We now think the Terracotta Army, the acrobats and the bronze sculptures found on site were inspired by ancient Greek sculptures and art."

Li, however, said that the BBC quoted her out of context, as the article ignored much of what she told BBC reporters.

"I think the terracotta warriors may be inspired by Western culture, but were uniquely made by the Chinese. BBC overstated my remarks about Western inspiration and ignored main points I made during the interview," Li told Xinhua.

Li said the local nature and cultural environment, such as soil, craftsmen and traditional funeral culture, all contributed to the creation of the Terracotta Warriors.

She also pointed out that the article put her quotes right before those of Professor Lukas Nickel from the University of Vienna, whose opinion is contrary to her own, but makes it seem as if they share the same idea.

According to the article, Prof. Nickel said, "I imagine that a Greek sculptor may have been at the site to train the locals."

"I am an archaeologist, and I value evidence. I've found no Greek names on the backs of Terracotta Warriors, which supports my idea that there was no Greek artisan training the local sculptors," Li said.

On the 23rd day of the third lunar month in the third year of the Zhizhi reign in the Yuan dynasty (corresponding to April 28, 1323), a prominent Mongolian princess by the name of Sengge Ragi held an elegant gathering at Tianqing Temple south of the capital Dadu (modern Beijing). Li Shilu, Director of the Imperial Library, was responsible for the gathering and members of the princess's imperial household assisted in organizing it. During the event, she took out works of Chinese painting and calligraphy from her collection for the appreciation of those in attendance and invited them to write inscriptions. This elegant gathering has come to be seen as a means for the ruling Mongols to proclaim their acceptance and appreciation of the high arts of Chinese painting and calligraphy. Modern scholars have also studied surviving and recorded works with the princess's collection seal, "Library of the Imperial Elder Sister," to compile a list of painting and calligraphy that was once in her collection. From the perspective of cultural history, their research offers a way to analyze the acquired tastes of appreciating and collecting art on the part of the Mongol rulers.

Princess Sengge Ragi was the great-granddaughter of the renowned Kublai Khan. Her grandfather was Prince Zhenjin and her father Darmabala, both also important figures in the Mongol Yuan ruling clan. She was also not the only member to take part in activities related to collecting art. Her son-in-law, Tugh Temür, who became Emperor Wenzong, established the Kuizhang Pavilion. There, he viewed rare books and participated in the appreciation of art with academicians, using seals with the "Tianli" (for his reign name) and "Kuizhang" characters to mark his collection. Later, Togon Temür (the last Yuan emperor known as Shundi) used the seal "Treasure of the Xuanwen Pavilion" on Chinese painting and calligraphy at his court. These three figures all had important works of the Song and Yuan dynasties in their collections.

This special exhibition features 43 works, many of which are masterpieces from the Song and Yuan dynasties. Since some are of "restricted" status, they must be rotated to accommodate shorter display periods. The exhibit is not merely an opportunity to present famous artworks from the collections of these three members of the Mongol Yuan imperial clan. By providing a glimpse of the imperial holdings, the display demonstrates, from a Yuan cultural perspective, the significance of Mongol rulers' involvement in Chinese painting and calligraphy. In contrast with previous studies emphasizing the sinicizing role of Chinese art on Mongol rulers, this exhibit focuses on showing the unique interaction among ethnic groups at the time, allowing audiences to witness in concrete terms a new cultural vision of "toleration and acceptance."

Thursday, 20 October 2016

For the layman, the history of Central Asia is complex. When I first visited the Buddhist cave grottos, dating from the 5th to the 14th century, at Bezekilk in Xinjiang province, China, I was struck by the destruction wreaked on them by those whose religion proscribes figurative images of sentient beings

When and by whom had the vandalism of these exquisite and colourful portraits been done? I later learnt that the Buddhist Uyghurs of the Kingdom of Qocho and Turfan, in which Bezekilk was situated, were converted to Islam by conquest during a holy war at the hands of the Muslim Chagatai Khizr Khwaja. Not easy information to assimilate.

Genghis Khan and the Mongol horde’s activities are widely known but not always in detail. What dynasties did they sweep away on their destructive paths of pillage and conquest? Many of the dynasties they conquered were under the influence of Islam. Yet in their turn, these Muslims had overcome Sogdian princedom resistance in the 9th century. Central Asian history can be extremely confusing for the non-specialist.Into this Central Asian complexity and confusion steps Dr Christoph Baumer with a masterly third installment in his four-volume series on Central Asia covering the Age of Islam and the Mongols. With his consummate academic and archaeological professionalism, Baumer cuts through the historical smokescreen and gives a detailed and authoritative account appropriate for both scholar and layman alike.

“Baumer cuts through the historical smokescreen and gives a detailed and authoritative account appropriate for both scholar and layman alike”

He explains that prior to the 8th century, Islam had established itself in Central Asia through a combination of Iranian book and Turkish sword. Turkic-Muslim dynasties were established and Islam offered an ideological method to break down borders between warring clans and tribes. By the mid-11th century, science, scholarship and the arts flourished as this newly-established Central Asian hegemony spread to other parts of the Muslim world. This cultural development in turn was followed between 1000 and 1220 AD by a complete reconfiguration of the region – ethnically, linguistically and politically – by further Islamic Turkic migrations and through dynasties they established such as the Seljuks, the Karakhanids, and the Ghaznavids.

However, from the mid-12th to the mid-13th centuries, Genghis Khan and his successors abruptly and comprehensively extinguished this cultural Islamic renaissance with the establishment of the largest land empire ever known, more than three times the size of the United States. This empire remained in a mutated form until the last great Mogul of India was deposed in 1857.

The Mongols were secular rulers with no regard for any one particular religion and had a great inquisitiveness about all of them. Not for them the eradication of Buddhist images. ‘Just as God has given the hand several fingers, so he has given mankind several paths,’ explained the religiously broad-minded Great Khan Monke to a Franciscan monk in 1254. But unlike the Muslims, the Mongols did not create political structures in their territories. Their subsequent destructive forays into Russia and Europe brought them into contact with constantly warring European dynasties and principalities, yet not a single Mongol regime was established. What did flourish in the aftermath of their invasions was trade. When in the 1270s the Mongols encountered stern opposition from the Egyptian Mamelukes they abandoned their role of ruthless conquerors and tried to treaty with European kings and popes for military alliances. This was a development of huge consequence for Europeans, which led to the spread of geographical knowledge of an unknown region and more importantly trade with Central Asia.

Many have written about Genghis Khan and his successors’ national and international military campaigns. But seldom has the prose been so lucid and the illustrations so illuminating. In the Great Khan’s own words, ‘All the face of the Earth from the going up of the sun to its going down [has been] given [to me by God].’ Under Baumer’s expert guidance and firm hand, historians, religious scholars and the non-specialist can follow Genghis Khan’s Islamic predecessors and the Mongols along the surface of the Earth.

This review was published in the October 2016 edition of Geographical magazine.

Photo taken on Oct. 5, 2016, shows antique Chinese porcelain fragments in the city of Acapulco, Mexico.

A new archaeological find announced on Friday in Mexico attests to China's age-old vocation as an exporting powerhouse. Mexican archaeologists have uncovered thousands of fragments of a 400-year-old shipment of Chinese "export-quality porcelain" that was long buried in the Pacific Coast port of Acapulco. (Xinhua/Meliton Tapia/INAH)

A new archaeological find announced on Friday in Mexico attests to China's age-old vocation as an exporting powerhouse.
Mexican archaeologists have uncovered thousands of fragments of a 400-year-old shipment of Chinese "export-quality porcelain" that was long buried in the Pacific Coast port of Acapulco.
The shipment of rice bowls, cups, plates and platters dates from the reign of the Ming Dynasty's 13th emperor, Wanli (1572-1620), and is believed to have arrived in Acapulco aboard the China Galleon, which regularly sailed between Asia and the New World.

"During its 250 years of cabotage along the coasts of the Pacific in the Americas, the China Galleon left an indelible trail," Mexico's National Institute of Anthropology and History (INAH), said in reporting on the find.
In an on-site interview posted on INAH's website, archaeologist Roberto Junco said "we discovered there were four or five models or styles ... characteristic of a type of ... export-quality porcelain that the Chinese made, mainly in the factories of Jingdezhen, and exported around the world."
According to Junco, the white-and-blue porcelain, painted with images of birds, beetles, swans, ducks, deer and other depictions of nature, was made in Zhangzhou, capital of south-central Fujian province, and Jingdezhen, in Jiangxi province, which is known as China's "Porcelain Capital."

The find, located no more than a meter and a half below ground near Acapulco's Cathedral, in what is known as the Old Quarter, included fragments of a coarser type of ceramic used to make containers for shipping provisions, such as spices and liquids.
Mexico's ports were often targeted by pirates, which could explain why the shipment appears to have been destroyed.

The discovery coincides with an exhibit at Mexico City's Franz Mayer Museum called "Return Voyage: The China Galleon and the Baroque in Mexico," which highlights China's artistic influence on the New World through trade.
While Mexico and China are separated by a great distance, trade ties have linked the two regions for centuries.
The China Galleon regularly sailed between Acapulco, and other Mexican ports, and Manila, in the Philippines, and today's Taiwan, China where it would load up on Chinese spices and silks, and other goods.
Fabricio Antonio Fonseca, a researcher at the prestigious Colegio de Mexico, says the initial encounter between Mexico and China occurred when the galleon first sailed into a Mexican port.
The discovery of new maritime routes linking Asia, the New World and Europe in the 15th and 16th centuries launched an era of unprecedented global trade and cultural exchange.
Evidence even shows that starting in 1565, the return trips to Mexico were manned by Chinese crews, said Fonseca.

Wednesday, 19 October 2016

The Legacy of the Ancient Kings. Ctesiphon and the Persian Sources of Islamic Art

15.11.2016 to 02.04.2017 Pergamonmuseum

Berlin Germany

How did Islamic cultures and Islamic art arise? Where do their roots lie? Like the Islamic religion itself, Islamic art also built on its predecessors in the Middle East. Focussing on Ctesiphon, a vast landscape of ruins south of Baghdad, this exhibition is devoted to the Persian legacy inherited by Islam.

Dominated by the monumental vaulted hall of the royal palace, the Taq-e Kesra, the city today is an emblem of the grandeur and downfall of the mighty Sassanid empire, a great power in ancient Persia about which little is known today. For centuries it competed with Rome and Byzantium. In the 7th century CE, however, the conquests by the Arab armies fundamentally changed the political balance of power. Culturally, too, a transformation took place – "Islamic art" was born. But had everything really changed?

The exhibition shows that the existing culture did not simply disappear and that the new culture did not arise out of nothing. Starting with a panoramic view of the world around 600 CE, it introduces a multi-cultural cultural landscape and illustrates how old techniques, ideas and motifs lived on. Many things were adopted to serve as the basis for new innovations – while others disappeared into the darkness of history. The exhibition also invites the visitor to consider the purely practical problems of researching the past. How can cultural change be identified from archaeological objects? What difficulties do archaeologists encounter when trying to reconstruct the past and what new opportunities are there for us today? Belonging, as they do, to a cultural legacy shared between Iraq and Iran and a cultural heritage currently under threat, and bearing witness to the birth of Islamic culture, the objects on display raise concrete questions for the present day.

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Hans van Roon

About Me

My fascination for these subjects started in the '80 's by reading the book of Peter Hopkirk about the travels and explorations of Aurel Stein in Central Asia at the beginning of the 20th century.
Over the Silk Road through Central Asia, the Taklamakan Desert, Bokhara and Samarkand I arrived in the 13th century and followed the building of a world empire by Genghis Khan, his sons and grandsons.
His most famous grand son was Khubilai Khan and with him I ended in the Yuan Dynasty in the time when Marco Polo visited China and since than I never stopped reading again

Bibliotheca Sinica 2.0

Bibliotheca Sinica 2.0 explores Sino-Western encounters with a guide to digitized books on China published between 1477 and 1939

Yale Silk Road Database

The Yale Silk Road Database serves as a multi-disciplinary resource with relevance to students and faculty working in the fields of art and archaeology, religious studies, history, East Asian languages and literatures, Central Asian and Islamic studies.

International Dunhuang Project

IDP is a ground-breaking international collaboration to make information and images of all manuscripts, paintings, textiles and artefacts from Dunhuang and archaeological sites of the Eastern Silk Road freely available on the Internet